Video: What secrets are kept in the ancient giant city hidden in the jungle of Cambodia
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
The city of Mahendraparvata, one of the first Angkorian capitals of the ancient Khmer Empire, which once existed on the territory of modern Cambodia, turned out to be practically an ancient metropolis - with neighborhoods and an extensive network of roads. Scientists managed to discover this using a new research method - lidar (laser) scanning. The pictures supplemented the data of the hiking expedition.
Previously, archaeological evidence for this lost city, located northeast of Angkor Wat city, was limited to only a few relatively isolated shrines. However, aerial lidar scanning from a helicopter, which took seven days, combined with ground-based imaging techniques, revealed an "expanded urban network" dating back to the 9th century CE. e.. It is her archaeologists who consider the city of Mahendraparvata.
Lidar images made it possible to find an urban area of about 40-50 square kilometers on the plateau. As it turned out, Mahendraparvata was the first large-scale city built by the Khmer Empire on the Phnom Kulen massif.
Moreover, scientists have established that the ancient metropolis appeared here long before the famous Angkor Wat temple complex was built, which was ruled by King Jayavarman II. The discovered city was founded in 802, which is 350 years earlier.
No less important was the "ground" part of the study, which confirmed the images of the lidar with visual facts. The route of the expedition was not easy - they had to walk along goat paths, through swamps and even minefields left over from the war. First, archaeologists discovered five new temples, but in the end, using the lidar data, they managed to find a total of three dozen previously unknown temples of the ancient city. One can only guess how large-scale Mahendraparvat was in terms of area!
“As it turned out, the city had a complex network of major transport arteries that divided the central zone into a“grid”system, actually divided into city quarters,” the researchers of this area explain.
Almost throughout the entire territory of the ancient city, scanners recorded a number of civil and religious architectural structures - sanctuaries, mounds, ponds, a large water system of dams and a large unfinished reservoir in the alleged administrative center of the city, as well as a royal palace and a massive pyramid temple.
Interestingly, despite the expanded urban network, the central part of the city was not marked with a wall or a moat, as is the case in Angkor and all other later Khmer cities. Researchers consider this fact to be absolutely unique for the Khmer world.
By the way, according to Dr. Evans, who is working on the project, the decline of this ancient civilization could have occurred as a result of deforestation and the problem of water supply.
I must say, this is not the first case of the discovery of so-called lost cities in Cambodia. For example, Australian archaeologist Dr. Damian Evans reported some time ago that aerial laser scanning revealed several cities in the rainforest jungle, ranging in age from 900 to 1400 years, and some of them could rival Cambodian capital Phnom Penh in size. However, if a few years ago, Preah Khan was considered the largest ancient city and temple complex built in the Angkor period (its area is 22 square kilometers), then after the discovery of a new ancient metropolis "the" leader "had to move, because Mahendraparvata was twice larger.
The data from the lidar survey allowed scientists to complete 150 years of archaeological and cartographic work carried out in the vast Angkor region.
- Now, using more subtle demographic models, you can finally study the history of Angkor in more detail: find out how it expanded, collapsed and rebuilt over the centuries, once becoming one of the largest civilizations of the Ancient World.
Read also about where and why the pyramids were built.
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